#J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World

[nyxshadowhawk]

A Retrospective on Harry Potter

Why did I like it in the first place? What about it worked? Where do I go from here?

I have decided to give up Harry Potter.

J.K. Rowling’s reputation now stinks to high heaven. At this point, she is quite indefensible. And even if that weren’t the case, she is not someone that I would want to associate with anyway. Meanwhile, the internet has not only turned against her, but against Harry Potter itself. An innocent question on Reddit, about which Hogwarts Houses the ATLA characters would be in, got downvoted to oblivion. Innumerable Tumblr threads insist that fantasy fans should get into literally anything else (suggestions include Discworld, Earthsea, The Wheel of Time, and Percy Jackson). And now that Harry Potter is no longer a sacred cow, there has been a recent slew of video essays that rip it to shreds, attacking it for its poor worldbuilding, unoriginality, and the problematic ideas baked into the original books (like the whole SPEW thing), etc. Those criticisms always existed, but now they’re getting thrown into the limelight.

It pains me to see such an ignoble downfall of Harry Potter’s reputation. If Rowling had just kept her damn mouth shut, Harry Potter would have aged gracefully, becoming a beloved children’s classic. I'd still plan to introduce it to my own kids one day (after Rowling dies and the dust settles). It’s not surprising that not all aspects of it have aged well, since it’s been more than twenty years since its original publishing date, and everything starts to show its age after that long. I acknowledge that most of the criticisms of the series that I’ve seen lately are valid, and I’ve read plenty of better books. And yet, when I return to the books themselves, even with the knowledge of who JKR really is inside my head, I still really enjoy reading them! There’s still a lot about them that I think works!

None of the other things I’ve read have had as collossal of an impact upon my identity, my values, and my own writing as Harry Potter. It’s hard to move on from it, not just because it’s something I enjoy, but because I have to literally extract my identity from it. I don’t know who I’d be without Harry Potter. I don’t know what my work would look like without Harry Potter. I don’t know how to carry it with me as just another piece of media that I like, as opposed to a filter for who I am as a person. So, with all that in mind, I have to ask myself why I liked Harry Potter so much in the first place. If I’m going to move on from it, then I have to be able to define and isolate the things about it that I want to keep with me. Something about it obviously worked, on a massive scale. So what was it?

It’s not the worldbuilding. The worldbuilding is objectively quite terrible, especially in comparison to that of other fantasy writers who knew what they were doing. At best, it’s inconsistent and poorly thought-out, and at worst it’s insensitive or even racist. Is it the characters? The characters are, in my opinion, one of the stronger parts of the story. But I felt very called-out by one of the many online commentators, who said that anyone who identifies with Harry is too cowardly to write self-insert fic. (I do not remember who said it or even which site it was on, but I distinctly remember the phrase, “Reject Harry Potter, embrace Y/N.”) The reason why people get so invested in Harry Potter’s characters is because they’re easy to project upon, and it’s possible that my love of Harry comes more from over a decade’s worth of projection than anything else. The incessant arguments over characters like Snape, Dumbledore, and James Potter ultimately stem from the fact that these characters do not always come across the way Rowling wanted them to. As for the writing itself, it’s decent, but not spectacular. Harry Potter is something of a sandbox world, with less substance than it appears to have and a crapton of missed opportunities, making it ripe for fanfic. For more than ten years, I’ve been doing precisely that — using Harry Potter as a jumping-off point to fill in the gaps and develop my own ideas, some of which became my original projects.

So what does Harry Potter actually have that sets it apart? Why are people so desperate to be part of Harry Potter’s world if the worldbuilding is bad? What, specifically, is so compelling about it? I think that there’s one answer, one thing that is at the center of Potter-mania, and that has been the underlying drive of my love of it for the past decade and a half: the vibe.

Harry Potter’s vibe is immaculate.

You know what I mean, right? It’s not actually a product of any specific trope, but rather a series of aesthetic elements: The wizarding school in a grand castle, with its pointed windows and torches and suits of armor, ghosts and talking portraits and moving staircases, its Great Hall with floating candles and a ceiling that looks like the night sky, its hundreds of magically-concealed secret doorways. Dumbledore’s Office, behind the gryphon statue, with armillary spheres in every single shot. Deliberate archaisms that evoke the Middle Ages without going as far as a Ren Faire: characters wearing heavy robes, writing with quills and ink on parchment instead of paper, drinking from goblets, decorating with tapestries. Owls, cats, toads. Cauldrons simmering in a dungeon laboratory. Shelves piled with dusty tomes, scrolls, glass vials, crystal balls, hourglasses. Magical candy shaped like insects and amphibians. A library with a restricted section. A forbidden forest full of unicorns and werewolves. That is the Vibe.

There are five armillary spheres just in this shot. They are unequivocally the most Wizard of tabletop decor.

There’s more to it than just the aesthetic, though. The vibe is present in something that writers call soft worldbuilding.

There’s a phrase that writers use to describe magic systems, coined by Brandon Sanderson: hard magic and soft magic. Sanderson’s first law of magic is, “An author’s ability to solve problems with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.” A hard magic system has clearly-defined rules — you know where magic comes from, how it works and under which conditions, how the characters can use it, and what its limitations are. Examples of really good hard magic systems include Avatar: The Last Airbender and Fullmetal Alchemist. If the audience doesn’t understand the conditions under which magic can work, then using magic to get out of any kind of scrape risks feeling like the writer pulled something out of their ass. It begs the question, “Well, if they could do that, then why didn’t they do that before?”

You may come away from that thinking that having clearly-defined rules is always better worldbuilding than not having them, but this isn’t the case. Soft magic isn’t fully explained to the audience, but that doesn’t matter, because it isn’t trying to solve problems — its purpose is to be evocative. Soft magic enhances the atmosphere of a world by creating a sense of wonder. If your everyman protagonist is constantly running into cool magical shit that they don’t understand, then the world feels like it teems with magic, magic that is greater and more powerful than they know, leaving lots of secrets to uncover. Harry Potter, at least in the early books, excels at this. The soft magic in Harry Potter is what got me hooked, and I think it’s what a lot of other people liked about it, too.

The essence of soft magic is best summed up by this scene in the fourth film, in which Harry enters the Weasleys’ tiny tent at the Quidditch World Cup, only to find that it’s much bigger on the inside. His reaction is to smile and say, “I love magic.”

That’s it. That’s the essence of it. You don’t need to know the exact spell that makes the tent bigger on the inside. You don’t need to know how Dumbledore can make the food appear on the table with a flick of a wand, or how he can make a bunch of poofy sleeping bags appear with another flick. You don’t need to know how and why the portraits or wizard cards move. You don’t need to know how wizards can appear and disappear on a whim, or what the Deluminator is, or where the Sword of Gryffindor came from. You don’t need to know how the Room of Requirement works. Knowing these things defeats the purpose. It kills the vibe, that vibe being that there is a large and wondrous magical world around you that will always have more to discover.

One of the best “soft magic” moments in the books comes early in Philosopher’s Stone, when Harry is trying to navigate Hogwarts for the first time:

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The people in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Harry was sure the coats of armor could walk. —Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 8

Many of these details don’t come back later in the series, which is a shame, because this one paragraph is super evocative! It establishes Hogwarts as an inherently magical place, in which the very architecture doesn’t conform to normal rules. Hogwarts seems like it would be exciting to explore (assuming you weren’t late for class), and it gets even better when you learn about all the secret rooms and passages. The games capitalized on this by building all the secret rooms behind bookcases, mirrors, illusory walls, etc. into the game world, and rewarding you for finding them. The utter fascination that produces is hard to overstate.

Another one of the most evocative moments in the first book is when Harry sees Diagon Alley for the first time, after passing through the magically sealed brick wall (the mechanics of which, again, are never explained). This is your first proper glimpse at the wizarding world and what it has to offer:

Harry wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, “Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad....” A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium — Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand — fastest ever —" There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon.... —Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 5

What works so well here is the magical weirdness of wizardishness juxtaposed against normalcy. Eeylops Owl Emporium is just a pet shop to wizards. A woman makes a very mundane complaint about the price of goods, but the goods happen to be dragon liver. Broomsticks are treated like cars. All of these small moments contribute to the feeling of the wizarding world being alive, inhabited, and also magical. It gets you to ask the question of what your life would be like if you were a wizard. What do wizards wear? What do they eat? What do they haggle over and complain about? What do they do for fun?

In Book 3, Harry enjoys Diagon Alley for a few weeks when he suddenly has free time, and we get to experience the wizarding world in a state of “normalcy,” when he isn’t trying to save the world. He gets free ice creams from Florean Fortescue, gazes longingly at the Firebolt, and engages with delightfully weird people. He’s a wizard, living a (briefly) normal wizard life among other wizards in wizard-land. And that is fun. It’s so fun, that people want that experience for themselves, enough for there to be several theme parks and other immersive experiences dedicated to recreating the world of Harry Potter.

One of the greatest things about Universal was its phenomenal attention to detail. You can hear Moaning Myrtle’s voice in the women’s bathroom, and only the women’s bathroom. The walls of the Three Broomsticks have shadows of a broom sweeping by itself and an owl flying projected against the wall, so convincingly that you’ll do a double take when you see it. Knockturn Alley is down a little secret tunnel off of the main street, and that’s where you have to go to buy Dark Arts-themed stuff. It’s really well done.

Another thing that contributes to the vibe, in my opinion, is that the wizarding world is slightly macabre. They eat candy shaped like frogs, flies, mice, and so forth, and they have gross-tasting jellybeans. In the film’s version of the Diagon Alley sequence above, there’s a random shot of a pet bat available for purchase. In the third film, when Harry is practicing the Patronus Charm with Lupin, the candles are shaped like human spines. In the first book, this is Petunia’s description of Lily’s behavior after she became a witch:

Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that-that school, and came home every holiday with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was — a freak! —Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter 4

I remember reading this for the first time, and it just kind of made intuitive sense to me. I suppose it fits into the “eye of newt and toe of frog” association between magical people and gross things, but somehow it works. Unfortunately, this is retconned later with the knowledge that wizards can’t use magic outside school, but before that limitation gets imposed, the idea of Lily amusing herself by turning teacups into rats seems like an inherently witchy thing to do.

That association between magic and the macabre shows up elsewhere, as well. In The Owl House, Luz’s interest in gross things is one of the things that marks her as a “weirdo” in the real world. When she goes to the magical world of the Boiling Isles, weird and gross stuff is absolutely everywhere. That world’s vibe leans more towards the macabre than the whimsical, but it works because you sort of expect the gross stuff to exist alongside the concept of witches, and that they would be an intrinsic part of the world they inhabit. You don’t question it, because it’s part of the vibe.

(The Owl House is one of the few things I’ve encountered that has a similar vibe to Harry Potter, but it’s still not the same vibe. In fact, The Owl House outright mocks the expectation that magical worlds be whimsical, and directly mocks Harry Potter more than once. The overall vibe is much closer to Gravity Falls.)

The Harry Potter films utilize a lot of similar soft worldbuilding with the background details, especially in the early films that were still brightly-colored and whimsical. For example, the scene in Flourish and Blotts in the second film has impossibly-stacked piles of books and old-timey looking signs describing their subjects, which include things like “Celestial Studies” and “Unicorns.” When Harry arrives in the Burrow in the same film, one of the first things he sees is dishes washing themselves and knitting needles working by themselves, taking completely mundane things and instantly establishing them as magical. In that Patronus scene with Harry and Lupin, the spine-candles and a bunch of random orbs (and the obligatory giant armillary sphere) float around in the background. One small detail that I personally appreciate is the designs on the walls above the teacher’s table in the Great Hall, which are from an alchemical manuscript called the Ripley Scroll:

It’s all these little things that add up to produce The Vibe.

Obviously, much of the vibe is expressed very well in John Williams’ score for the first three Harry Potter films. The mystical minor key of the main theme, the tinkly glockenspiel, the strings, the rising and falling notes that mimic the fluttering of an owl, the flight of a broomstick, or the waving of a wand. That initial shot of the castle across the lake as the orchestra swells, as the children arrive at their wizarding school:

If you grew up with Harry Potter, just looking at this image gives you The Vibe. The nostalgia hit is definitely part of it, but The Vibe was already there, back when you were a child and you didn’t have nostalgia yet.

In my opinion, only Williams’ score captures this vibe — the later films, though their scores are very good, do not. But the soundtrack of the first two video games, by Jeremy Soule (the same person who did Skyrim) absolutely nails it. This, right here, is Harry Potter’s vibe, condensed and distilled:

This is why I feel invalidated by the common advice “just read another book.” I have read other books. I’ve read plenty of other books, many of which are wonderfully written and have left an impact on me. But there’s still only one Harry Potter. To date, there’s only other book that has filled me with a similarly intense longing for a fictional place, and that is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. That book deliberately prioritized atmosphere over everything else in the story, and actually lampshades this in-universe. The Night Circus has a plot and it has characters, but it’s not about its plot or characters. It’s about the setting and its atmosphere. It swallows you up and transports you to a fictional place that is so evocative and so magical that you just have to be part of it or you’ll die. And even then, The Night Circus has a different kind of vibe from Harry Potter. In this particular capacity, there’s nothing else like Harry Potter.

The thing is, I don’t think Rowling was being as deliberate as Erin Morgenstern. (In fact, given many of Rowling’s recent statements, I question how many of her creative choices were deliberated at all.) She was throwing random magical stuff into the background without thinking too hard about it, which works when you’re writing a kids’ story, but stops working when you try to age it up. Actually, scratch that — soft worldbuilding is definitely not just for kids! The Lord of the Rings has a soft magic system, for crying out loud, and Tolkien is the original archmage of worldbuilding. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that prioritizing atmosphere over meticulousness is bad worldbuilding. That is a valid way to worldbuild! Not everything needs to be clearly explained, not everything needs to make sense. The problem is that Harry Potter doesn’t balance it well. Certain things do have to be explained in order for the magic to play an active role in the story (and the setting of a magic school lends itself to that kind of explanation), but no rules are ever established for the kinds of magic that need rules. When you begin thinking about the rules, you’re no longer just enjoying the magic for what it is. At worst, you begin running up against the Willing Suspension of Disbelief.

It wasn’t actually the “aging up” of the story that did it in, per se, but rather, the introduction of realism. The early books were heavily stylized, and the later books were less so. A heavily stylized story can more easily maintain the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. That’s why, for example, you don’t ask why the characters are singing in a musical — you just sort of accept the story’s outlandish internal logic, and the inherent melodrama of it doesn’t take you out of the story. Stylized stories are more concerned with being emotionally consistent over being logically consistent. The later Harry Potter books changed their emotional tone, but without changing the worldbuilding style to compensate.

In addition to the more mature themes and darker tone, Harry Potter introduced more realism as it went, but Rowling did not have the worldbuilding chops to pull this off. There’s the basic magic system stuff: When you begin thinking about it too hard, something like a Time-Turner stops being a fun magical device, and starts threatening to break the entire story. Then there’s the characters: Dumbledore leaving Harry on the Dursleys’ doorstep in the first book is an age-old fairy tale trope that goes unquestioned, but with the introduction of realism in the later books, it suddenly becomes abandonment of a child to an abusive family. The exaggerated stereotypes of characters like the Dursleys become tone-deaf. The fun school rivalry of the House system is suddenly lacking in nuance. And then there’s the shift in tone: The wizarding world that we were introduced to as a marvellous place is revealed to be dystopian. You start thinking about how impractical things like owl messengers are, you start wondering if Slytherin is being unjustly punished, the bad history appears glaringly obvious, the quaint archaisms become dangerously regressive. Oh, and the grand feasts are made through slave labor! The wizarding world suddenly feels small and backward instead of grand and marvellous. J.K. Rowling’s bigotry throws it all into an even harsher light.

This is why I’ve always preferred the early books and films to the later ones. There’s a lot of things I like about the later ones, but they’re not as stylized — they don’t have The Vibe. Thinking about things too hard is just a necessary condition of adulthood, but it’s still possible to tell a dark, mature story that is highly stylized. I really think JKR could have better pulled off that shift if she was a more competent worldbuilder. But it is painfully obvious that she did not think things through, and probably didn’t understand why she had to. In her defense, she did not know that her story would end up being one of the most scrutinized of all time. As it stands, her strength in worldbuilding was in the softer, smaller, deliberately unexplained moments of magic that were there just to provide atmosphere. And there were less and less of those as the books went along.

Pretty much all the Harry Potter-related content released since the last film — including Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts, Hogwarts Mystery, Hogwarts Legacy, Magic Awakened, and that short-lived Pokemon Go thing — have been unsuccessful attempts at recreating The Vibe. In fact, the only piece of supplemental Potter content that I think had that Vibe down pat was the original Pottermore, back when it was more of an interactive game. And of course that got axed. That was right around the time things started going downhill.

Some of the art from Pottermore’s original Sorting quiz.

So what now? Well, that’s the question.

I think I can safely say that The Vibe was the reason I liked Harry Potter. It’s the thing I still like the most about it. I’ve spent years chasing it, like an elusive Patronus through a dark wood. If I can capture and distill that Vibe, and use drops of it in my own work, then perhaps I won’t need Harry Potter anymore.

I'm gonna write the story that I wish Harry Potter was, and when I'm a famous author, I won't become a bigot. I'll see you on the other side.

[vellichorira]

[🌹]: i don't know why, but i just love, love, love, love, love the harry potter/hogwarts aesthetic so much. it's just so appealing to me. it always makes me feel so giddy inside. i don't even know how to describe it, it's just so delicious, and it makes me want to be a character in the story or some shit like that. did i mention that i love it? maybe it's just a reminder that i'll always be in love with this series. obsessed, even. j.k. rowling did the real magic, y'all, i'm telling you, she enchanted all of us to be infatuated with this series forever.

[curiositysavesthecat]

*This poll was submitted to us and we simply posted it so people could vote and discuss their opinions on the matter. If you’d like for us to ask the internet a question for you, feel free to drop the poll of your choice in our inbox and we’ll post them anonymously (for more info, please check our pinned post).

[hopeymchope]

Oh GOD the fiendish David Zaslav is rebooting Harry Potter with a new "extremely faithful" adaption of the seven books. J.K. TERFling is heavily involved, she's executive producing, and they've made a TEN-YEAR COMMITMENT already.

Five Rapid-Fire Thoughts I Had in Reaction to This News:

Fuck Zaslav. (Btw, did I mention that — after deleting half of HBO Max's original content — Zaslav has now announced a price hike to the newly christened "MAX" service? As if giving a shitload of money to the planet's most notable TERF wasn't enough fuckery. FUCK that fucking shitheel.)

See below.

3. All y'all who were like "Boycott Hogwart's Legacy or You're Automatically a Terrible Person" or whatever because Rowling was going to make like a 1% royalty off of that game had GODDAMN BETTER boycott HBO MAX (....uh, sorry, it's just "MAX" now, I keep forgetting bc that name sucks — "HBO MAX" wasn't all that good a name to begin with IMO, but now it's worse) from here on out. YES, I know it's harder to boycott an entire streaming service that may contain OTHER content you want, but c'mon now, just bootleg anything you want off MAX in the future. (I'll help! I will send you a link or whatever if you need assistance. Message me. It's cool.) Because this is going to make her SO MUCH MORE MONEY due to involving her FAR MORE DIRECTLY. FUCK. WHY. Why did they fucking do this.

4. There are so many things in the books that are either A) poorly explained workarounds for continuity/logic issues or B) extremely problematic that the movies were actually BETTER for ignoring them. Can't wait to see the scene where every single known Time-Turner gets accidentally broken shortly after Prisoner of Azkaban in order to ensure the characters can never use time travel to fix their problems again! SUPER excited for the plotline where Hermione has to learn that she's silly and wrong for trying to free slaves because the slaves are fucking happier being enslaved! OH BOY!

5. God, a ten-year production commitment UP FRONT. I hope they lose so much money on this stupid-ass project that they wind up dragging their feet to produce future seasons for so long that the contract runs out before they've gotten farther than like, the third novel, and then it just dies on the vine. Would be HILARIOUS.

[nightingale2004]

explain your fav underrated marauders era character? and tag with #underratedmarauders

I want to say Mary Macdonald. Because not much is known about her, especially in the books. Only mentions in the Harry Potter books, and we can assume that she was close with the marauders or knew them through Lily since she knew Lily and was also a Gryffindor

Plus, the popular headcanon that she obliviated herself during the war. To do something like that to yourself and if her friends saw her on the street and tried to see how she was doing, but she didn't remember them is heartbreaking yet interesting.

I want to see more headcanons on Mary and what her life is like with the marauders and if she slowly comes back to the wizarding world or not. The fans do it for everyone else.

Anyway, thanks for asking the question, anon

[chaotichouseofmaximoff]

I see you're a Harry Potter fan. So... I'm gonna regret asking this, but what's your opinion of JK Rowling? Because I'd rather get that out of the way now before talking to a fellow Wanda Maximoff stan.

I don’t support her. I totally disagree with her views on Trans-Women. I think, if you say you’re a woman, you’re a woman. If you say you’re a man, you’re a man. I’ve learned to separate the art from the artist, Harry Potter from J.K Rowling.

[tudorblogger]

‘The Harry Potter Wizarding Almanac’ by J.K. Rowling

Genre: Adult Non-Fiction – Literature Published: 2023 Format: Hardback Rating: ★★★★★ What a brilliant book! It contains so much information gleaned from the stories, and some extras tossed in by J.K. Rowling. I know Rowling is a little controversial at the moment, but these stories saved me during the darkest times of my life and I’m not going to forget that. Falling back into this world is…

[liligeometry]

Exploring the Magic of Harry Potter: Secrets and Theories Unveiled

[atorturedpoet1989]

I miss the old potter more so much- does anyone else remember the really cool diagon alley and great hall animation things? Like it got simplified and became rubbish

The best GIF that Pottermore ever did… the first time Harry & Ginny kiss

[alltrekvarnews]

La serie A de 'Harry Potter' va con J.K. Rowling como productora ejecutiva, programada para 10 años en Max.

[vellichorira]

[🌹]: how come no one bothered to tell me that maggie smith, the actress who played professor mcgonagall, died?!

she died maybe yesterday and when i heard, i CRIED. i literally CRIED!

may she rest in peace, and i will ALWAYS remember her as the LEGEND who brought professor mcgonagall to life.

we love her😭🙏

[mustnotbenamedblog]

'Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone' Throwback Book Review

It’s hard to believe that it’s been over two decades since the release of the first book in the Harry Potter series, The Philosopher’s Stone, but its magic still remains as captivating as ever. As a self-proclaimed Potterhead, I recently took a trip down memory lane and re-read the entire Harry Potter series, and I have to say, it’s been quite the magical experience. It’s incredible how a series…

[giantmetalrobotto]

Warner Discovery planea el reinicio de Harry Potter para HBO TV con J.K. Rowling

Después de explorar ideas para dar vida a una serie de televisión de acción en vivo de Harry Potter hace un par de años, supuestamente HBO está cada vez más cerca de convertir esos planes en realidad. Según un informe de Bloomberg, Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. está “cerca de cerrar un trato” para una nueva serie de televisión basada en J.K. Los libros mágicos de Rowling, que adaptarían cada una de…

[sevilynne]

"B—but... Snivellus is a death eater..."

Listen here, you little shit. For Severus, he got neglected by BOTH parents (and it was implied that he was abused both physically and mentally as well.), gets bullied by two boys because he wanted to go to Slytherin (who sneers back and ends up getting bullied), almost gets killed and Sirius nor Remus gets any consequences other than detention (Really? Is his life worth detention and not Azkaban?), James flexes it to Lily and Lily starts believing James over the victim, Severus accidentally calls his bestfriend a mudblood over the heat of the situation (Lily was about to smile, when James literally used scorgify in his mouth), loses the person thay cared for him the most compared to others (Which Lily isn't even a good friend, so his life is messed up), with Remus and Sirius not maturing (Sirius still calls Severus "Snivellus", and Remus and Sirius spreading lies like "Severus was jealous of James" or "Lily never hated James," when it's the other way around!!! James was jealous of Severus because he existed and Lily was his best friend!

Now his blood supremacist friends are basically recruiting him, and helping him on the way! Basically, the "bad side" is his good side! They are the only ones who "cared" for him when he needed help! He was a death eater for a reason, and people manipulating him because he was vulnerable is a reason.

The audacity of stans trying to make a hotter version of Severus—Regulus? Regulus is basically a walmart Severus but Timothée Chalamet dressed up in wizard robes! If Regulus was told as ugly, nobody would boohoo care about him.

Y'all only hate Severus and love Regulus because J.K. Rowling never made a Marauders era movie! Regulus is basically a blood supremacist with Voldemort shrines and posters who'd call Lily a mudblood! While Severus is basically bullied on a daily basis.

You guys got to see Severus's good and bad things! Like him "bullying" children, but saved the wizarding world. Literally, maybe he targeted children, but so did Minerva! Minerva literally targeted Neville and locked him outside of the Gryffindor common room when there's an apparent psycho killer, and humiliated him infront of everyone! But we all never see that because we are in Harry's POV, she favours him—she only took points and she was apparently fair because Harry's BIASED!!! Just like how all Slytherins are portrayed because of Hagrid and Ron!!! She favours Gryffindor just like how Severus favours Slytherin, except she takes big points away (which is from Gryffindors she doesn't like) and when she's infront of the professors!

Severus is a morally grey character, and Regulus? We basically time skipped him, we skipped all of the bad things he has done while we never skipped Severus's, that's why you don't have a bad opinion about him, but really! In the Marauders timeline, Regulus was a Voldemort fanboy while Severus literally had stuff happening.

This is why you don't hate James Potter, you guys basically skipped HIS timeline and moved to Harry's, which Severus is portrayed to be this big bad bully until DH! And that's why Harry "Snape's #1 Biggest Hater" Potter's vision changed to "Snape's #1 Biggest Defender", just like how his vision changed from "My father is a great man" to "I fucking hate my own father".

But you guys are so deep into these fanfics like CR (Crimson Rivers) or ATYD (All the Young Dudes) that you all forget about canon lore! He physically assaulted, sexually assaulted, and mentally exhausted Severus! We're not throwing the SA word around, because lets think of this:

———

Lily let out a stream of mixed swearwords and hexes, but her wand being ten feet away, nothing happened.

“Wash out your mouth,” said James coldly. “Scourgify!”

Pink soap bubbles streamed from Lily’s mouth at once; the froth was covering her lips, making her gag, choking her —

“Leave her ALONE!”

James and Sirius looked around. James’s free hand jumped to his hair again.

It was one of the boys from the lake edge. He had black hair that fell to his shoulders and startlingly onyx eyes.

“All right, Snape?” said James, and the tone of his voice was suddenly pleasant, deeper, more mature.

“Leave her alone,” Severus repeated. He was looking at James with every sign of great dislike. “What’s she done to you?”

“Well,” said James, appearing to deliberate the point, “it’s more the fact that she exists, if you know what I mean...”

Many of the surrounding watchers laughed, Sirius and Wormtail included, but Lupin, still apparently intent on his book, didn’t, and neither did Severus.

“You think you’re funny,” he said coldly. “But you’re just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave her alone."

Behind her, the Impediment Jinx was wearing off. Lily was beginning to inch toward her fallen wand, spitting out soapsuds as he crawled.

“Bad luck, Prongs,” said Sirius briskly, turning back to Evans. “OY!”

But too late; Lily had directed her wand straight at James; there was a flash of light and a gash appeared on the side of James’s face, spattering his robes with blood.

James whirled about; a second flash of light later, Lily was hanging upside down in the air, her robes falling over her head to reveal skinny legs and a skirt.

Many people in the small crowd watching cheered. Sirius, James, and Wormtail roared with laughter. Severus, whose furious expression had twitched for an instant as though he was going to smile, said, “Let her down!”

“Certainly,” said James and he jerked his wand upward. Evans fell into a crumpled heap on the ground.

Disentangling herself from her robes, she got quickly to her feet, wand up, but Sirius said, “Petrificus Totalus!” and Lily keeled over again at once, rigid as a board.

“LEAVE HER ALONE!” Severus shouted. He had his own wand out now. James and Sirius eyed it warily.

“Ah, Snape, don’t make me hex you,” said James earnestly.

“Take the curse off her, then!”

James sighed deeply, then turned to Lily and muttered the countercurse.

“There you go,” he said, as Lily struggled to her feet again, “you’re lucky Snape was here, Evans —”

“I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like him!" (Severus is canonically a Mudblood because he has dirty blood—Muggle blood)

Severus blinked.

“Fine,” he said coolly. “I won’t bother in future. And I’d wash your skirt if I were you, Evans.”

“Apologize to Snape!” James roared at Evans, his wand pointed threateningly at her.

“I don’t want you to make her apologize,” Severus shouted, rounding on James. “You’re as bad as she is.”

“What?” yelped James. “I’d NEVER call you a — you-know-what!”

“[...], walking down corridors and hexing anyone who annoys you just because you can — I’m surprised your broomstick can get off the ground with that fat head on it. You make me SICK.”

He turned on his heel and hurried away.

“Snape!” James shouted after him, “Hey, SNAPE!” But he didn’t look back.

“What is it with him?” said James, trying and failing to look as though this was a throwaway question of no real importance to him.

“Reading between the lines, I’d say he thinks you’re a bit conceited, mate,” said Sirius.

“Right,” said James, who looked furious now, “right —”

There was another flash of light, and Evans was once again hanging upside down in the air.

“Who wants to see me take off Evans’s skirt?”

———

Now, let's see if this isn't messed up. This is humiliating! Why did Severus leave his female best friend when she was being PA'd and SA'd by a male! Why did he take out his wand too late? Why is he such a coward?

Gender roles do matter in this context, no matter if Severus considers this as SA or not, it's SA and he got his pants stripped down, but it doesn't matter, he's a boy isn't he?

If this was Lily, everyone would care, but no! It's greasy, slimy, old Snape, and he's a boy.

Sirius nor James used dark spells, but they were pretty much using hexes so it doesn't matter—they are basically baby DE bullies but Gryffindors.

Stop attacking Severus and start thinking about this, because he was just a boy.

A lot of people (Not all) cared for Harry when Myrtle basically tried to SA him, why not Severus? He was stripped infront of the whole school! (Not invalidating Harry's trauma), this is just so messed up.

[tudorblogger]

‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ by J.K. Rowling

Genre: Fantasy / Sci Fi First Published: 1998 Format: Hardback Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Series: Harry Potter #2 Rating: ★★★★ This book isn’t my favourite of the series, but it adds to the growing story with finding more of Voldemort’s history revealed. Although I absolutely love Harry Potter, I would have to say that ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ was my least favourite,…

[slitherinky]

Masterlist | About me | Requests

The Magic of Forgiveness

Setting: soft!Theodore Nott x fem!Reader

Warnings: 18+ smut and fluff, MDNI, fingering, oral sex (fem and male receiving), unprotected sex, creampie & Theo being more nice than he should

Summary: On a frosty Christmas Eve, Theodore Nott’s distant demeanor towards you unravels as he finally confesses the truth behind his distance: his overwhelming feelings for you. The tension melts away as he offers not only a heartfelt apology but also a special gift...

3117 Words

Please be aware of the warnings before proceeding. If you are underage, sensitive to depictions of violence, or intense explicit content, it is do not to read further. This story is purely fictional and does not reflect or endorse such behavior in real life. Any attempt to replicate the actions described in this story in real life is strongly discouraged. Harry Potter and the Wizarding World is a trademark of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros.

The enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall glittered with floating snowflakes, their icy shimmer mirroring the wintry magic that seemed to overtake every corner of Hogwarts as Christmas drew near. The castle, cloaked in frost and decorated with festive garlands, felt like a living fairytale. Students bustled through the hallways, their laughter mingling with soft hum of Christmas carols. 

You found yourself walking through the long, drafty corridors of Hogwarts, surrounded by the lively chatter of your friends. The scent of winter followed you as your boots clicked softly against the stone floors. It wasn’t long before your small group reached the familiar classroom door, which led to your last class of the day. 

You threw your books onto one of the tables with an audible thump. Taking your seat, you couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief. Just one more period, then you could hurry back to your common room and get changed. After that, it was nothing but a relaxing night with friends until the feasts tomorrow. 

The minutes ticked by at a snail’s pace. Professor Binns was droning about yet another goblin rebellion. The rhythmic monotony of his lecture, coupled with the soft scratching of quills and the occasional whispered exchange between students, created an almost trance-like atmosphere. You found your gaze wandering to the frost-covered windows, your quill tapping absentmindedly on your parchment as your thoughts drifted far from the lesson at hand.

As you reached for your inkpot, a folded piece of parchment appeared on your desk. You blinked, certain it hadn’t been there a moment ago. Glancing around, you noticed nothing suspicious — no one looking your way, no hint of a culprit. Curious, you unfolded it, your heart skipping as you read the delicate handwriting.

Meet me tonight by the Christmas tree in the courtyard.

The note was unsigned, and your mind raced. Was this some sort of prank? Or something more… genuine? Your fingers grazed the edge of the parchment, tracing the loops of the handwriting as if they could give you a clue. It didn’t look like anyone’s you immediately recognized, and yet, there was something familiar about it.

For the rest of the lesson, you couldn’t focus. Who had sent the note? And why?

As you packed up your things at the end of class, your eyes darted toward the front, where Theodore Nott sat, his sharp profile illuminated by the pale winter light. You couldn’t help but remember a time when the two of you had been inseparable, sharing your deepest secrets during late-night conversations in the common room. But somewhere along the way, things had shifted. He’d grown distant, his easy smiles replaced by guarded glances. Now, he seemed as disinterested in you, as you had been in the lesson.

The evening couldn’t come fast enough. As you slipped out of the common room and made your way to the courtyard, the air was crisp and tinged with the scent of pine. The massive Christmas tree stood in the center, adorned with twinkling fairy lights and glittering ornaments. Your breath formed clouds in the chilly air as you hesitated, half-wondering if this was all a mistake.

“You came.”

The voice startled you, low and soft. You turned to find Theodore Nott standing behind the tree, his hands tucked into the pockets and his face half buried in his green and silver scarf.

“It was you?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

He nodded, stepping closer. "Yeah. It’s me. Look, I know I’ve been… distant. And I’m sorry."

You blinked, unsure of how to respond. "Theo, why?"

He hesitated, his breath visible in the cold air. "I… I didn’t know how to face you anymore. It’s not an excuse, but I was scared. You mean more to me than anyone else, and I thought… if I kept my distance, maybe it would hurt less if something went wrong."

He fell silent, and for a long moment, you simply stared, your thoughts whirling. His words had knocked the breath from your lungs, leaving you feeling like you were suspended in time. 

"Theo," you said at last, "what are you talking about?"

He let out a frustrated sigh, as if he’d already said too much. 

"I have feelings for you y/n. Ever since we were first years. I thought we were just friends, but I want you to be more," He paused. "I thought you would have left me if I had told you."

His confession hit you like a wave, and for a moment, all the confusion and frustration of the past months melted away. 

"You’re an idiot," you said, still in shock of what he had just said.

"I know. But I’m here now. And I want to make it up to you."

Before you could reply, he gestured toward the castle. "Come with me. I… I want to show you something."

Curious, you followed him as he led you through the snow-covered grounds and into the dungeons. The familiar green glow of the Slytherin common room greeted you as Theo ushered you inside. The space was quiet, as most of the students had left after the last lesson to go home for the holidays.

"Wait here," he said, disappearing for a moment. When he returned, he held a small box and motioned for you to join him by the window. Snow had begun to fall outside, the flakes dancing against the dark sky. He opened the box to reveal a delicate silver necklace with a polished emerald dangling.

"Merry Christmas," he murmured, his eyes meeting yours.

You took the necklace, your fingers brushing his. "Theo, it’s beautiful."

He smiled softly. "Not as beautiful as you."

The words hung in the air, and before you could second-guess yourself, you leaned closer. His lips met yours, warm and soft, as the snow fell gently outside the window. In that moment, all the distance, all the questions, faded away, leaving only the warmth of his presence and the promise of something new.

As you pulled back, your chest felt fluttery and your lips tingled with the memory of his touch. 

"I- I think that’s the best Christmas present I’ve ever had."

"I’m glad," he murmured, taking a step closer, "but I can make it even better, if you let me."

Without thinking, you reached for him, and he met you halfway. Your lips were still tender from the previous kiss, but as they brushed together, they seemed to spark with new energy. This time, his lips moved more insistently, his tongue seeking yours out. The world seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of you, lost in the heady taste of each other. His teeth grazed your lower lip, and you felt the kiss deep in your stomach.

"Theo," you moaned. The sound seemed to encourage him, his arms wrapping tighter around you as his mouth trailed down your throat. His breath ghosted across your skin, raising goosebumps.

The sight of his teeth biting your lip made you moan, and suddenly you felt hungry for more. More of what had been hidden from you for so long. More of what you wanted from him at this very moment. Your tongue swirled with his, tasting him. Your mouth was so hot and wet from his saliva. 

“You’re blushing,” he said, pulling slowly away from the kiss. His voice was low and teasing.

Your cheeks burned even more at his words, and you crossed your arms in a feeble attempt to look composed. 

“I am not,” you shot back, though the quiver in your voice betrayed you.

The faintest smirk tugged at his lips as he straightened and took a step closer, closing the distance between you. His hand reached up, brushing gently against your cheek, and your breath hitched at the contact.

“You’re a terrible liar, Love.” he murmured, his thumb grazing your jawline.

Before you could formulate a reply, Theodore moved again, this time slipping one arm behind your back and the other under your knees. In one smooth motion, he lifted you off the windowsill.

“Theo!” you exclaimed, instinctively clutching at his shoulders. “What are you doing?”

His smirk deepened, his dark eyes glinting with amusement. “You looked like you were about to collapse. Can’t have you fainting after one kiss, now can we?”

You opened your mouth to argue, but the warmth of his arms around you, the steady rhythm of his breathing, and the heat rising to your face made it hard to string words together. “I wasn’t going to collapse,” you muttered, but your voice was softer now, more uncertain.

“Sure you weren’t,” he said, clearly unconvinced as he carried you through the common room.

The space was quiet, the usual chatter and footsteps absent. The remaining Slytherins were long asleep, leaving only the two of you under the dim, flickering green light.

When Theodore reached his dorm, he nudged the door open with his foot and stepped inside. His room was tidy, almost minimalistic, with a faint scent of cedarwood and parchment lying in the air.

He lowered you onto his bed with care, his hands lingering just a moment longer than they needed to before he straightened. But instead of stepping away, he sat down beside you, the bed dipping slightly under his weight.

“There,” he said softly, his tone lighter now. “Safe and sound.”

You pushed yourself up slightly, your gaze flickering between his face and the faint pattern of shadows on the wall. 

“You really didn’t have to carry me,” you said, though your voice lacked the sharpness you’d intended.

“Maybe not," He took a deep breath, "But I wanted to. I want to adequately apologize for my behavior the last months. May I?" He asked, leaning forward. 

Your heart began pounding in your chest.

“Yes,” you replied.

His mouth met yours, this time without hesitation. He pushed you against the pillows. His hands roamed your body, his lips making their way down to your thighs. He was seeking your consent, and you found yourself wanting to give it, to give him every part of you.

You trembled at the sensation, his lips and tongue sending shivers up your leg. His fingers kneaded into your thigh, pressing gently into your muscle. You could feel his eyes on you, watching your reactions.

“Do you like that?” he asked, his voice husky.

“Mhm,” you repeated while nodding, not trusting yourself to say anything more.

Theodore’s fingers tightened around your thighs, his thumbs trailing across the seam of your trousers. Your head tipped back at the touch, your eyes fluttering shut.

“Open your eyes,” he murmured. “I want you to see me. See how much I love this. See what I’m giving you.”

His thumbs brushed higher, grazing against your pussy. You felt your breath catch, your thighs quivering. He kissed the inside of your thigh, his tongue tracing delicate circles on your skin. The sensation made you quiver, your legs falling open for him. He hummed his approval and teased your slit with his fingers, drawing slow circles around your clit. 

“Theo,” you moaned, your hips twitching.

He kissed his way up your thigh, nipping at the crease before gently pulling at your pants and underwear. You lifted your hips for him, allowing him to slide them off. The cool air tickled against your skin, but it was nothing compared to the warmth of his mouth.

When his lips closed around your clit, you gasped, your whole body clenching. He groaned at the sound, his fingers joining his mouth as he rubbed you in slow, deliberate motions. Your head rolled back, and you could feel your legs trembling, your toes curling against the mattress. 

“Feel good?” He asked between kisses.

“Yes,” you gasped. "god yes."

He growled softly and slid one finger inside of you. “How about now?”

Your hips arched at the intrusion, your body clenching around him. 

His tongue swirled against your clit as he fingered you, his strokes slow and deep. Your pussy clenched around him, your vision blurring. You were close to the edge, your breath quickening with every stroke of his tongue, every movement of his fingers. 

“Theo, I’m-“ you gasped, but couldn’t finish before your orgasm overtook you. Your back arched, and you cried out, the feeling ripping through you. You felt like you were falling apart, the sensations too powerful to bear. 

Theodore withdrew his fingers and licked them clean. 

"You taste delicious," he moaned. "Like sweet cream and vanilla." 

He kissed you deeply, allowing you to taste your pussy on his tongue.

You laughed, the sound weak. Your body was still buzzing from his touch, the memory of it still echoing in your senses. 

"You're a bastard," you said, but there was no heat behind your words.

Theodore smirked, his eyes glinting. "So I've been told." He leaned back, his gaze sliding down your body.

You noticed then that he was still dressed. His robes had slipped down in the heat of the moment, revealing a tantalizing slice of his collarbone. The sight sparked an ache in your stomach, and you suddenly, desperately wanted to see him — really see him. 

“Take off your clothes,” you ordered, your voice low and commanding.

He blinked, his eyes wide. “Really?”

You nodded, your pulse thrumming. "I want everything of you Theo."

Without a word, he reached up and began to unbutton his shirt. He undressed slowly, deliberately, each movement almost agonizing in its slowness. When the last button was undone, he shrugged the garment off and let it fall to the floor.

Your breath caught at the sight of him — his chest was broad, his abs tight and defined. He looked even better than you’d imagined, his body lean and toned. A trail of dark hair dusted his chest, trailing lower to disappear beneath his trousers. 

Your fingers twitched with the urge to touch him, but you didn’t move. You wanted to savor this, to commit every detail of him to memory.

With a smirk, Theodore reached down and began to undo his trousers. They slid down his hips, revealing a pair of dark boxers and a bulge that left no doubt as to his arousal. You swallowed, your mouth dry at the thought of his cock inside you. 

“Is this what you wanted?” he murmured, glancing up at you.

You nodded wordlessly. “Yes.”

He slipped out of his boxers, his cock springing free. It was long and thick, the head flushed red with arousal. He stroked himself slowly, his fist moving in long, lazy motions.

“Come here, Love,” he murmured.

You obeyed, reaching out to take his cock in your hands. Your palms were warm against him, the skin hot and velvet-soft. You stroked him, your hands moving in tandem with his. His head tipped back at your touch, a groan escaping his throat.

“Fuck y/n,” he rasped, his voice low.

You moved down, your tongue swiping across his tip. He was hot against your lips, salty and musky. You licked him slowly, tasting him thoroughly as you worked your way down his shaft. His fingers tangled in your hair, his breath coming in short, quick gasps. 

You took him between your lips and sucked, moving slowly as you took him deeper. His fingers tightened in your hair, guiding you as you bobbed on his cock. Your tongue slid down his length, swiping at the tender skin. He let out a loud moan at the sensation, his hips jerking. 

Suddenly he pulled your head back. 

"Get naked for me, Love." he growled. "I want to see your body."

You obeyed, stripping the garment off and tossing it away. The room was warm, but a shiver ran down your spine as his eyes traveled your body. 

He ran his fingers over the necklace he had just gifted you, trailing down over your small, pebbled nipples. You let out a soft gasp. "You're perfect," he groaned. "Lay back on the bed."

You did as he asked, sliding back on your elbows and spreading your legs for him. His eyes ran down you, his breathing speeding up. He gripped his cock in one hand, trailing the hand through your legs. You gasped, arching up into the touch. He felt so fucking good against you.

Theo let out a soft moan, pushing inside of you. The feeling was overwhelming.  He stretched you out, his thickness rubbing against your inner walls. You let out a small cry at the intrusion. He paused, looking up at you. 

"Are you okay?" he rasped.

"Fuck, yes," you moaned while nodding.

He pushed deeper inside of you, giving you a moment to adjust before pulling back and thrusting slowly inside of you again. Your whole body lit up with pleasure at the feeling of him moving in and out of you. His hips were quick, his strokes deep and strong. You could hear the slap of his skin against yours and the wet sounds of him fucking you. 

"I will never let you down again," he moaned. "I promise."

His thrusts sped up as he fucked you, pushing deeper inside of you. He pulled your thighs wider apart, groaning as he watched himself disappear inside of you. 

"Look at how pretty you look taking my cock," he gasped.

You met his eyes, the connection making you burn up with desire. His gaze ran over your body, taking in every detail. 

He pulled you up to him, your legs wrapping around him as he sat on the edge of the bed. He pounded into you, thrusting in deep and strong strokes. His hands ran down your back to grip your ass, lifting you up and down on his cock. You felt like he was holding you together, like you would fall apart if he let go of you. 

He brought his mouth to yours, kissing you passionately as he fucked you. You felt overwhelmed by his touch. He was consuming you. Your whole world was centered on him and his touch.

"I'm going to come," you cried out.

He grunted, his pace quickening. You felt his cock twitch inside of you as your pussy clenched, your orgasm waving through you both. He filled you with his come, your pussy clenching around him for more. Your chest heaved as you gasped for breath, your vision blurring as pleasure overtook you. 

When your body relaxed, he leaned down and kissed you. "Merry Christmas, Love." 

You smiled at him, pulling his face to yours. 

"It sure is." You kissed him again, softer this time. "Thank you."

He pressed a last kiss to your forehead before he almost inaudibly whispered in your ear

"I love you."

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